[Board] Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Report from the OSGeo Board meeting

[Arnulf Christl]

Well Frank beat me to it - as always. So much to the quality of service
offered by the board...

On 09/20/2011 09:43 PM, Eli Adam wrote:
> Reason for use of Board-priv (if it doesn't bounce):

Hi there,
no reasons to bump anything to the private board list unless it concerns
private matters. I keep it on the board list for now but anybody can
feel free to pull this on the discuss list any time.

> I send to the private list to not appear overly critical of the
> Board.  

It is absolutely in order to be critical of the board and better than no
reaction at all - which in summary is the relationship of "the
community" with the board so far. If we can get a constructive dialog
going this way - I am all in for it.

> I think that these and other questions are best answered in
> public (I suspect that it would naturally get pushed to the public
> list anyway, which is good).  I also want to give fair time to the
> Board to clearly articulate a response.

For now this is not a position of the board but just my personal one. If
any board member has a different opinion they will speak up. The good
thing about the personalities of this board is that they will speak up -
maybe one reason they ended up on the board in the first place.

> I don't have a specific preference of whether my name is attached to
> the below questions or not (although I would in general prefer to not
> be perceived as hostile to the Board or others since I am not.
> Hopefully I'm perceived as furthering constructive discussion.
> However, it could be easy to perceive this email as hostile.
> --Suggestions for improvement in tone welcome.)

I do not perceive this as hostile, it is fair questions that need to be
answered.

>>>> On 9/20/2011 at 6:51 PM, in message
> 
>> On Sep 20, 2011, at 3:14 PM, Arnulf Christl wrote:
>> 
>>> * We have reconsidered the way the organization is run and came
>>> to the conclusion that it is time for a change. * We would like
>>> to diversify our outreach and fundraising and address a wider
>>> range of activities. * As a result we have decided that the
>>> existing role of a single Executive Director is no longer the
>>> best use of our funds and we will discontinue this role. * We
>>> thank Tyler Mitchell for his great contribution in launching and 
>>> bringing OSGeo into operation over the last five years. We look
>>> forward to his continued contributions in coming years. * We will
>>> make supporting code sprints a higher priority of our goals and
>>> draft guidelines [3] to that effect. * As a first step we decided
>>> to financially back-up the Islandwood Code Sprint (sign up here
>>> [4]).
>> 
>> The elimination of the Executive Director position accompanies what
>> seems to be a strategic shift in the operation of OSGeo. It seems
>> such a move should have been discussed with the membership prior to
>> implementation. Being and open and transparent organization calls
>> for such discussions.

This may be true but the nature of the decision also touches on the
current performance of our outgoing director - and I would rather not
have this discussed by a broader community. This is a decision taken by
the board that I absolutely second. If this is unacceptable to the
community I am all open to step down and make way for more open folks.
We do not have a process for this in place but I consider myself
sensitive enough to tell when this is the case. I am not married to my
position in any way - I have actually considered to get the hell out of
here before this decision was taken.

Can the board explain how elimination of the Executive Director
>> supports the new goals? Or is it solely a financial issue? Is there
>> a strategic plan the outlines these goals and how they will be
>> implemented?

The ED position has not helped us to acquire sponsorship that can fund
it, we have been losing money over the past three years. So yes, the
financial side of things is relevant.

But as we tried to convey in the report there are other implications,
mainly that we - the board - think that we need a more diverse set of
skills in OSGeo than one single person can possibly unite in itself. My
personal strength is in communicating a vision and being away from home
more than there. But I am crap at steady regular maintenance of stuff.
Others might have a great wrangling capacity towards legacy hostile
proprietary shops spreading FUD. Others have intimate knowledge of a
certain domain but don't know anything about education, and so on.

We have no clear concept on how we can spend our budget to address these
different objectives and are very much expecting the community to help
in developing these ideas. It will be a big verbal fight and a lot of it
will be hot air - and it is our job now to channel it into the different
committees and see to it that things get done.

> I have some similar questions in addition to those asked by (...), but
> was going to give the board some time (since Arnulf said, The full
> minutes of the meeting will be on the Web soon).  In the spirit of
> asking good (clear, articulate, direct) questions here are a few I
> hope that the board addresses:

The minutes will be online soon - but be assured that they will not
answer a tenth of what you are asking. Why is that? Because the board
had one single day to hammer this out - and the board are only humans -
well, except for one who is an ex-Borg - whether that is good or not
might also be up for discussion.

> Is there going to be a paid long-term OSGeo position? 

In my opinion no but others on the board think differently. We will find
out.

> How will routine work get done?  

Just like routine work gets done, by people. We have started to collect
itmes that were executed by the ED role and started to shift them to
existing roles. Some will be executed by professionals who will probably
be more efficient in their domain (for example book keeping). This will
also help to professionalize the way OSGeo operates.

> How will OSGeo materialize a physical presence?  

OSGeo is a global organization and having one person in north eastern
Canada has proven to not be enough physical presence. This is no
criticism of Tyler, instead it is an acknowledgement that we have a
truly global community that must be able to represent itself as such -
globally. It does not make sense to ship one person around the world
when there are absolutely capable and trusted people on the ground. The
manifestation of Local Chapter is a perfect example of how this can
work. Additionally board members have a troublesome history of travel
(just look at all my t-shirts - what do you think where I got them?) and
have in the past outtraveled the ED position by far. Maybe this was not
so obvious but OSGeo already has a very physical presence all over the
world.

> Who will do these? What will be the OSGeo phone number?
> Who will answer it? What will be the OSGeo email?  Who will answer it

There have not been as many phone calls as to justify a full time high
executive, Tyler will confirm this. If the need arises - or the
community thinks we need it - mobile communication will solve the
problem plus making it truly global by shifting the number around the
globe with the sun - if really needed we can set up a network of people
hwo answer calls around the world at any time.

> and with what promptness or follow-through?

This very much depends on how we organize it - and again this is not
something that the board must now shoulder but something that the
community must solve. When the requirement to have a 24/7 availability
of support arises OSGeo can partner with an existing organization
providing this service. But my guess is that this is not on the top of
our priorities.

> There is some indication that the Board will take care of many of
> these tasks.  My observations of the Board indicate that the Board is
> made up of individuals who are very busy and already contribute
> significant resources to various OSGeo Projects and tasks.  

Thank you for acknowledging this. But this must not be reduced to the
board! The board has to be very careful to be just that - a board of
directors, and not paid executives!

> Action
> items do not always get accomplished in a prompt manner or ever. Do
> the current members of the Board think that they can perform better
> than previous Board members? 

I can and will certainly not perform better than I did before and if
that is not enough in the opinion of the broader community I will gladly
to step down - as stated before this is not a problem for me. If the
broader opinion is that a full time executive position will resolve this
problem then we can implement it again. Another question is why items
were not accomplished in a prompt manner or ever while we did have a
full time ED position? This is a slippery slope because it touches on
the performance of our ED - and I do not want to question this.
Therefore it is articulated as a question to be answered by yourself.
Just a hint: Maybe the organization is big and diverse enough in it's
needs to outperform any single ED could possibly live up to. And yet
again: The board of directors is not the executive body of OSGeo. The
executive body of OSGeo was and is all of us.

> Can these types of Directors
> consistently be attracted to Board membership in the future? 

This is a question that we will have to answer with each new election.
One reason why we have doubled the number of new Charter Board members
is exactly to be able to draw from a deeper pool of energized and
capable people.

> Will
> Board members continue to serve for several terms providing some
> historical continuity? 

Yes, and indeed we still have two original founders, Frank and myself on
board, plus Marc Lucas who already served on the board and Jeff McKenna
and Michael Gerlek who were original founding members. The continuity is
- so far - exceptionally good compared to other foundations.

> Who will provide sponsorship paperwork
> (receipts, bills, etc) and with what promptness? 

A professional organization, Daniel Morissette and Peter Batty are
working out the details.

> What will OSGeo do
> to interact with organizations that are more formal?  Specifically
> organizations that only view other organizations as legitimate if
> there are impressive titles and suits?

I can and do wear a suit when it is required as do other members of the
board and also of the broader community. We have currently 15 vice
presidents, more than 20 officers and 46 Local Chapters with each
representing a part of the community. This is a pretty wide range of
impressive titles. A very good point that we will need to address is
that we need to much better "market" these impressive titles.

> From paying attention to Board traffic, it was apparent that OSGeo is
> maturing as an organization and would need to make changes and I
> suppose that I didn't really get that involved since no changes are
> easier to react to than significant changes.  It seems that changes
> like this will require a more clear articulation of a plan than
> keeping everything the same (which really didn't require any
> articulation).  

True. Do you want to say that one good thing of this move was to
potentially shock the community into action?

> Sorry for holding you to a higher standard for making
> changes.

Not sure what this exactly means, maybe you can explain.

> Wishing the Board luck with the new direction, 

Well, the board seems to be out of luck, it is you who now need to live
up to their own high standards. Pun intended. Get a life. Get it here in
OSGeo - this is the chance.

> PS great to meet some of you in person at FOSS4G.

Thank you,
Arnulf

-- 
President, OSGeo
http://www.osgeo.org